Question

Matt Mason has seen the future—and it’s fun. Mason likes thinking about how machines can make our lives easier by doing the work we hate, such as cleaning. He shows a hard floor cleaning system（系統）that’s built into the wall: it will blow dirt to a part of the room where it will be collected by a vacuum（吸塵器）. Then the system will drop some cleaner on the floor and an arm will mop（用拖把擦）it up. “This may trouble you,” says Kara, an expert in Mason’s company. “But you can program it to come on at 3 a. m., and it will just wet-mop the floor for you.”

When it comes to the kitchen, Bruce Beihoff, another expert at Whirlpool, is sure that in a few years, robots will be doing most of the boring work, freeing us to relax. “More than just fun, future kitchens will be environmentally friendly,” he says. “A new system will be built in the house which can recycle energy（能量）lost from your kitchen to make the whole home warm.”

“The fridge will be the center of the home,” says Daniel Lee, a market expert. The fridge will have a touch screen （觸摸屏幕）where you can watch TV, surf the Internet, check your e-mail, keep a shopping list and order vegetables. “Your fridge is the first place you go in the morning and the last place at night,” says Lee.

Ever wonder why a 1.9-meter man and a 1.6-meter woman have to cook meals on counters（工作臺）of the same height. “The height was decided over 50 years ago, according to the height of ordinary women,” says Jane Langmuir, an expert of cooking machines. “But times have changed. We have made a new counter where you press a button and it moves to whatever height you want.” At the same time, Ted Selker at MIT’s Counter lab has made the Dishmaker which lets you make dishes and bowls out of plastics at home. After each meal, the dishes are changed straight back into plastics.

1. How many inventions are mentioned in the passage?

    A. Three.               B. Four.                C. Five.          D. Six.

 2. In future, if you want to clean your house, you will _________.

A. have a recycling system built in the wall

B. get up early to start your cleaning system

C. use your fridge to give orders to a cleaner

D. leave the work to a kind of cleaning machine

  3. What is future kitchen work like?

A. Terrific and relaxing.               B. Easy and interesting.

C. Enjoyable and exciting.            D. Funny and amazing.

  4. From the passage, we know _________.

A. people will have more and more time enjoying themselves

B. future kitchens can provide all the energy for our life every day

C. the fridge can be found in the center of a future house

D. people must be expert at computers to use these inventions

Answer 1

1. C        2. D        3. B        4. A